Armed With Second Chance, Magic Down Hawks On Harris’ Buzzer Beater 100-99

What a difference a day makes. After falling to the Hawks late yesterday the Magic returned the favor Saturday night. The Hawks lead 92-86 with less than three minutes to play but the Magic closed out the game on a 14-7 run spurred by Victor Oladipo and capped off by Tobias Harris’ game winner. The Magic were lead by Harris who scored 20 points and also added five assists, six boards, and three blocks while the Hawks were lead by Jeff Teague who scored 24 points and also contributed eight assists.

This game somewhat mirrored yesterdays contest in how this game never go away from either team. The Magic repeated their first quarter performance from last night shooting well over 50% but they also turned the ball over 10 times. The Hawks scored seven points off of those first quarter turnovers and it allowed the Hawks to take a five point lead after one. The Magic did a much better job of holding onto the ball only committing two turnovers in the second quarter which allowed them to gain some ground on Atlanta. Atlanta took a 47-46 lead into the half.

The second half is where this game changed dramatically from yesterday’s contest. The Magic were the team who ended up being down late and they were the team that staged the comeback. Some of this credit needs to be given to Jacque Vaughn. For starters Vaughn decided enough was enough and sat Willie Green for the entire night, opting instead to give more minutes to Evan Fournier and Victor Oladipo. Also of note with the return of Vucevic Vaughn decided to not play Channing Frye at Center. This helped Orlando a ton on on the glass. Late in the game on Victor Oladipo’s hot streak Vaughn decided to let Oladipo run the PnP with Channing Frye rather than Nikola Vucevic. With the Hawks having to respect Frye’s deep shooting Oladipo had a wide open path to the basket. On the following possession Orlando ran a similar set and Vic turned the corner, the Hawks defender was forced to switch to Vic coming into the paint where he then lob passed it to Vucevic for two points. While the last shot by Harris was great, it wasn’t a particularly good play design. Had Demarre Carrol not slipped the Magic likely would have been called for a five second violation and Orlando would have lost this game. However it’s important to note when Jacque Vaughn does good things.

Game Notes:

• Willie Green finally didn’t play. Miracles do exist, just in time for the holidays too.
• Dewayne Dedmon still got some playing time with Vucevic back. I’d like to see him paired with Channing Frye every time he’s on the court if possible.
• Evan Fournier has had two great games in a row. The Magic have gone back to putting the ball in his hands and he’s responding well.
• Elfrid Payton had a nice bounce back game tonight. He did a much better job of being aggressive when the Hawks came to trap him.
• Ben Gordon has proven somewhat useful. Gordon has scored in double digits nine times this season.
• Nikola Vucevic played 35 minutes in his first game back. He’s in great conditioning right now.
• With Vucevic back Devyn Marble was in street clothes. So my guess is that Harkless is ahead of him on Vaughn’s depth chart.

Rookie Report:

Elfrid Payton: Payton bounced back in a big way tonight. He did a much better job of getting his teammates shots and handled the offense well against an aggressive defense. This was a huge game for Elfrid, if he hadn’t been able to show that he could handle traps he could very well have faced it for quite a while. The good news is that he responded well and teams way be a little wary to  try it again off of a one game sample size.